The Denniston Rose (11 page)

BELLA RASMUSSEN OFTEN lies awake in her pink velvet bedroom listening to the curses and screams clearly audible, even in bad weather, erupting from Jimmy’s place. Sometimes it is only the heavy sleeping arm of her husband, Con the Brake, that keeps her from climbing out of bed, walking across the Camp in her nightgown and snatching Rose from that warring cabin, carrying her home snuggled against Bella’s loving, yearning bosom, to a warm bed where the child would be sung to sleep properly and cherished like any little girl deserves.

Since the Scobie accident Jimmy Cork has been without work. Like everyone else, Bella expected the family to pack their bundle, ride the Incline down to the other world and disappear for good. But Jimmy sits stubbornly on. Con the Brake says it’s his gold, but what use is some phantom goldmine to a cripple outcast like
Jimmy? No one would help him now, even if he asked, which he won’t.

It’s a mystery how they manage. Rose’s mother keeps her chickens, of course. Every Saturday afternoon Rose knocks on doors around Denniston with a basket of fresh eggs at a penny for two, but that is not going to keep a family of three fed and clothed. Let alone Jimmy’s liquor. Con says he must have a nugget or two stashed away, but if he does, someone else must cash it, as neither Jimmy nor Rose’s mother have left Denniston.

So they stay on, quarantined, in the far corner of the Camp. Jimmy rarely leaves the cabin. He is not so welcome in the saloon now, and where else would he go? Their presence is like a sore in the community. A festering that never heals. Even the baby’s death fails to thaw the chilly disapproval. Rose, coming and going, is a reminder that they are still there. Bella in her sprawling cabin at the Camp can hear, on still nights, the words slicing and tearing, on and on, inside the Cork cabin. It is the parents’ only form of communication. And Rose is marooned there.

Once, when Bella is cooking a good soup for Con’s dinner, with dumplings as he loves, she suddenly can’t bear it. She moves the pot to the side of the stove with one hand, unties her apron strings with the other, reaches for the coat hanging on the back door and, with no other thought in her head than Rose, purposeful as a fired cannon-ball, she tramps over frozen mud the several chains to Jimmy’s.

There’s no point knocking. Bella pushes open the door and fills the doorway, waiting for someone to notice. The whole of Rose’s life lashes at Bella’s eyes, strong and painful as a blow from Jimmy’s fist. Along the ceiling ridge of the one-room hut, sooty washing droops from a string. Over the open fire a blackened pot steams. Goodness knows how washing would dry, let alone what it was doing to Rose’s
lungs. The child sits on a tiny corner bunk, back in a cave-like depression in the raw rock. She doesn’t see Bella, or is ashamed to notice, how would you know? A piece of something bright turns in her hands, back and forth, over and over, stroking and fingering. She is singing as she turns, very quietly; Bella can’t hear the words.

A heel of bread and three tin cups stand on a rough plank table.

Near the fire, on a larger bed, Jimmy Cork sprawls, trying to fight off the woman who drags at him fiercely. Jimmy, hoarse from the whiskey, shouts and rages; the woman’s voice cuts like a knife. Neither notices Bella.

‘Give off! I’m not hungry, woman!’

‘You will eat at the table like a proper man!’

‘No one here’s a proper man. Shove off, whore woman!’

‘You will take food at the table!’ Rose’s mother screams, and hauls back to strike Jimmy.

When she sees Bella.

Suddenly her whole manner changes. Cracked and dirty fingers smooth down her apron as if it were fine worsted. The face snaps shut, black brows squared above coal-hard eyes. The spine straightens. There is no doubt that this is a confrontation. Rose’s mother snarls like an animal at Mrs Rasmussen, who stands, stunned, at the door, forgetting what she has come for.

Good evening,
Mrs C. Rasmussen
,’ says Rose’s mother, spitting the title out word by word. ‘I did not hear you knock.’

Bella takes a deep breath. She can be formidable too. ‘There was little point in knocking,
Mrs James from County Cork
. I have come out of concern for the child.’

‘Oh? So? And how can you worry your head about my child? You, who have no understanding of such matters?’

Bella blanches at this low blow, but rallies.

‘A child in distress is everyone’s concern, Mrs Cork. No child
should be subjected to such language and hostility.’

‘Ah!’ shouts Eva. ‘Keep your fancy lectures to the classroom. This is raw life down this end of the Camp, and Rose is part of it.’

Bella stands firm. ‘All the Camp can hear your battling. It is no better than a brawl in a whore-house.’

‘Well, you would know, you old madam,’ screams Eva. ‘One will recognise another, you should take care how you cast mud.’

‘You are a poor deluded soul.’ Bella’s words drop like stones, but her heart beats in fear now. Even so, she cannot resist another cast for Rose. ‘Perhaps Rose would be better off at our house for the night. To leave you free to care for your husband.’

But even as she speaks Bella knows she has made a mistake. She had pictured this differently. In her version Rose would cry out with relief at her entrance, come running to bury her little face in Bella’s warm skirts. The mother and father would be too depraved or too drunk to notice as Bella led the girl gently into the night.

In the real version, though, Rose sits through the exchange, cross-legged and unmoving on her bunk. She has seen Bella but has not come running. She has smiled — a tight secret greeting; not at all the sort a rescuing angel needs.

Eva sees the uncertain smile between the two and knows she has the upper hand.

‘Say good evening to your teacher, Rose,’ says Mrs James from County Cork. The sudden dignity, taut as stretched elastic, and malevolent, is deeply unsettling to Bella.

‘Good evening, Mrs Rasmussen,’ whispers Rose. She will not look again at her teacher, but stares down at the bright thing in her hand, turning and turning.

Bella feels the blood spread up over her bosom to set her face glowing. For a moment she feels she will be stuck in this doorway forever.

‘Well then,’ she says finally, ‘if the child does not require assistance I will take my leave.’

Rose’s mother nods. As she lays a hand to the door to close Bella out of their life, she speaks. Bella is terrified by the dark triumph in the woman’s eyes.

‘Rose’s home,’ shouts Mrs Jimmy Cork, ‘and her parents may not be what you, Madam Lah-di-dah, choose, but she is mine, not yours. You cannot take my daughter off like some bag of flour. No, you cannot! So. If your man cannot make you a baby, leave mine alone!’

Jimmy, like Rose, has not moved through all this exchange. Now he stirs and growls on his bed, a volcano preparing for its next eruption. Mrs James from County Cork closes the door.

As Bella clumps back across the Camp under stars, her tears are such a mixture of emotions she cannot sort them out at all.

THE CONCERT SEEMED a good idea at the time. Bella Rasmussen had been planning it for weeks. Her theory was that the communities on the Hill needed a focus to bind them, and that focus had to be her tiny but representative school. She was right, of course, but you can’t hammer human nature into a mould unless it’s ready, and as it turned out Denniston just wasn’t ready to be a tightly knit cosy little community.

The classroom at the back of Hanrattys’ is now bursting with the addition of two new children from the Welsh miners’ contingent. On this morning, March 18th 1883, Mrs C. Rasmussen’s cheeks are as pink as the little flowers she has embroidered on the yoke of her teacher’s smock.

‘Children,’ she announces, ‘we are to have an inspection from the Department. An Inspector is coming especially all the way
from Nelson. We must make a good impression.’

‘Well, I better stay at home then,’ says scruffy Tonto Jowett, and the rest of them snigger.

‘Maybe you should, Tonto,’ says Mrs Rasmussen, which stops him in his tracks. At Denniston, no one would be seen dead missing an official visit, they are so rare.

‘What will he inspect, Mrs Rasmussen?’ asks Michael, ready as always to leap into a new project, polish up whatever is dull, and shine. ‘Will he hear our Tables?’

‘He will. And our Rivers of England. And our Capitals of the World.’

‘Not Spelling?’ asks Brennan, hoping against hope.

‘Spelling,’ says Mrs Rasmussen firmly, but adds, seeing Brennan’s worried face, ‘He will not fail the whole school if you get a word or two wrong, Brennan. And we will sing him a song to welcome him.’

The nightmare of the correct ordering of letters fades from Brennan’s face. He beams. If there is to be singing, Brennan will be asked to sing solo. His chunky little body produces a voice as open and clear as the summer sky. He would sing all day, and most would stop to listen.

‘We could sing “Rose of Tralee”,’ says Rose of Tralee.

‘We could indeed,’ says Mrs Rasmussen, trying not to notice the fresh bruise under Rose’s eye, and her tangled unwashed hair. ‘And Rose could sing solo. Wouldn’t that charm any Inspector from Nelson now?’

Bella Rasmussen ignores for the moment Brennan’s black brows descending; Rose needs something to live for.

But the miners’ children have other ideas. Rosser Scobie wants ‘Bread of Heaven’ with the older boys doing the bass part. Dylan Rees thinks ‘All Through the Night’ would be more suitable.

‘I can do verse two of that one,’ offers Brennan, still hoping for a solo.

Mrs Rasmussen smiles at the enthusiasm. ‘Well, children, this is an occasion. It would seem that a bracket is called for. And if my husband is not on duty, he may accompany us on the accordion.’

There is general excitement over this. Con the Brake’s accordion brings out the best in everyone.

‘But can he play “Bread of Heaven”?’ asks Andrew Scobie. The twins are determined to sing the bass part, which they have just learned at Chapel.

Brennan’s hand goes up. ‘My father can play “Bread of Heaven” on the cornet. And our brother can do tenor horn.’

‘And Uncle Arnold …’

‘No, he can’t.’

‘He can. He has a trombone under his bed.’

‘And David …’

‘No, Dad says he’s not good enough yet.’

‘But he can do “Bread of Heaven”, can’t he, Rosser?’

‘Anyone can do “Bread of Heaven”.’

‘Not David — he can’t,’ says Rosser Scobie.

‘Not David,’ agrees young Brennan, and the Scobies are quiet for a moment.

‘Well now,’ says Mrs Rasmussen into the silence, ‘I did not know Denniston had a brass band in its midst. I believe an entire concert may be called for, not a single bracket. We will invite the Inspector to stay the night. What do you say, children, to an Entertainment! We will surprise him, shall we, and the whole of Denniston, and raise funds for the new school?’

Everyone pays homage to this shining idea.

‘Will you sing too, Mrs Rasmussen?’ asks Michael Hanratty, who has heard her rich, swooping voice rise from the parlour late at
night as he lies in his bed upstairs. He can never catch the words but her songs throb with feelings so powerful that the boy can hardly bear it. He finds himself moaning and thrashing under the blankets until the voice sobs and sinks its way to the end.

‘Well, Michael, we shall see,’ says pink Bella Rasmussen, itching to kick up her heels and dance a step or two to show the children what she can do, but mindful of her new position in society.

‘And another thing,’ she adds. ‘While the Inspector is here, Mrs Hanratty will be your teacher.’

‘Why?’ asks Rose. Her favourite word.

‘It is a secret. A game. She will be teacher, and I will be her assistant.’

UP the plateau at Scobies’ the twins and Brennan are jumping around their father like a pack of eager puppies.

‘She wants a brass band, Dad, for the concert.’

‘She wants “Bread of Heaven”.’

‘Does she now?’ says Josiah Scobie.

‘She wants an Item of our Choice, too.’

‘David’s not ready,’ says Josiah, ruffling fifteen-year-old David’s wiry hair. David is now first boy in the family.

‘It’s three or four weeks away, Dad.’

‘Chapel is one thing,’ says Mary Scobie, ‘but to play in a concert, in the town, is another.’

The boys wait. They know what this is about and look to their father. Josiah sighs and nods to his wife. They are seated at their own table in their own home, built by the Scobie men and boys, and there is good food in front of them.

‘We cannot stay up in Burnett’s Face here forever, Mother,’ says Josiah. ‘The twins and young Brennan here have made the move, and we must too. Denniston should be one community. We have a need to stand together.’

Mary’s plate is barely touched. She has grown thinner. The steady warmth that used to draw people to her has faded. She clasps her head as if she would tear out the thoughts in it.

‘I know you are right, Josiah. I know it with my head. The heart is another matter. But you must get a band together and play for them. I will come if I can.’

The boys still wait. Josiah pushes himself up from the table, walks with a heavy tread around to Mary’s end. He puts one rough hand on her shoulder. The boys have never seen him so gentle with her.

‘You will find the strength, with the Lord’s help.’

He looks at the boys with a grin that is like fresh sea air entering the house.

‘Well, lads, we will make up a band, shall we? A brass band to make all at Denniston proud, eh?’

The boys grin back, hardly daring to break the moment as their father plans.

‘Samuel Rees plays the tenor horn like Uncle Arnold, so I hear, and another of the Welsh miners is a bandsman, though what instrument I have not learned.’

‘Cornet, Dad, so Taffy McDavitt says, but he has no instrument.’

‘Oho, cornet! Is he good, do you hear?’

‘Can’t touch you, Dad,’ says Mathew stoutly, though he has no idea in fact.

‘We must see what we can organise, then. The Company might be persuaded to assist with an instrument or two, though there is little time.’ He turns to the younger ones. ‘Is there anyone else down at the Bins plays an instrument that you’ve heard?’

‘Con the Brake plays accordion,’ says young Brennan.

The older boys are scornful and Josiah laughs. ‘That’s not a
proper instrument, lad; what son of a bandsman would even suggest such a thing? Accordion!’

The small papery sound is Mary. Her first laugh.

‘And will you sing solo?’ she asks Brennan.

The twins look sharply at Brennan, but even he knows this is not the moment to discuss the matter.

‘Yes,’ he says to his mother.

He doesn’t say that Mrs Rasmussen is teaching him and Rose to sing ‘Rose of Tralee’ as a duet, and that she would like Josiah to accompany them on solo cornet.